1 Emeritus Professor Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli and Coordinator of Survival is Not Enough for the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies2 Former Fellow of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies

Abstract

This paper summarizes life and works of Avvocato Gerardo Marotta (1927-2017), Founder and President of the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies from 1975 until his death. He obtained cum laude the Degree in Law discussing a thesis on “The Concept of State in Classical German Philosophy and Hegelian Left”. He was a follower of the Italian Institute for Historical Studies founded by the Philosopher Benedetto Croce. He was a fellow of the Gramsci Group of Naples and a founder of the Association New Culture. He and his young colleagues were very appreciated by the leaders of the Communist Party, however they could not be regimented and were expelled in 1954. Later Marotta was for 20 years a successful lawyer with great expertise in Administrative Law. Finally, he created the Italian Institute of Philosophical Studies and drove it to international appreciation. The list of Marotta’s Honors is impressive. He collected more than 300,000 books and journals devoted to Philosophy and History which will finally be utilized in a specific library funded by the Campania Region. He is known as the last Jacobin (as per his own definition), has been defined L’Homme des Lumières by Jacques Derrida. He supported Nephrology for a series of programs of vast culture, such as: i. the birth of the International Association for the History of Nephrology (1993), ii. the Appeal for Clinical Research (1997), iii. Survival is not Enough (2007 to present) and iiii. the International Conference on the Human Capital of Age (2016).

Key words: Gerardo Marotta, Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, History of Nephrology, Appeal for Clinical Research, Survival is Not Enough, The Human Capital of Age